EPISODE 2004: Jacob Heilbrunn on conservative America’s 100 year romance with foreign dictators like Kaiser Wilhelm II, Mussolini, Pinochet, Orban and Putin

In his new book AMERICA LAST: The Right’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators, Jacob Heilbrunn argues that American conservatives have always had the hots for foreign dictators like Kaiser Wilhelm II, Mussolini, Franco and Pinochet. And so, he argues, it’s no great surprise that contemporary rightists like Ron DeSantis, Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson have all fallen so heavily for contemporary European enemies of democracy. It’s a fatal attraction, Heilbrunn describes this illiberal infatuation with autocrats like Orban and Putin. And it reflects the weakness, rather than the strength, of many on the American right.

Jacob Heilbrunn is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Eurasia Center and editor of the National Interest, a foreign policy magazine that was founded by Irving Kristol in 1985. He began his career as an assistant editor at the magazine, where his first issue was one featuring Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History?” essay. He went on to become a senior editor at the New Republic and an editorial writer for the Los Angeles Times. He has written on both foreign and domestic issues for numerous publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Reuters, Washington Monthly, and the Weekly Standard. He has also written for German publications such as Cicero, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, and Der Tagesspiegel. In 2008, his book They Knew They Were Right: the Rise of the Neocons was published by Doubleday. It was named one of the one hundred notable books of the year by the New York Times.

Named as one of the "100 most connected men" by GQ magazine, Andrew Keen is amongst the world's best known broadcasters and commentators. In addition to presenting KEEN ON, he is the host of the long-running How To Fix Democracy show. He is also the author of four prescient books about digital technology: CULT OF THE AMATEUR, DIGITAL VERTIGO, THE INTERNET IS NOT THE ANSWER and HOW TO FIX THE FUTURE. Andrew lives in San Francisco, is married to Cassandra Knight, Google's VP of Litigation & Discovery, and has two grown children.

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